China Watch Blog

China Watch Blog has learnt that Shanghai’s economy ended up with an annualized growth of 9.9 percent last year, accelerating from 2009′s 8.2 percent and well above an 8-percent target.

However, a quarter-on-quarter moderation indicated Shanghai requires a new engine to drive its economy after the World Expo, according to a Shanghai Daily report.

The city’s gross domestic product amounted to 1.687 trillion yuan (US$256.3 billion) last year, the Shanghai Statistics Bureau said today. The annualized rates in the four quarters settled at 15 percent, 10.7 percent, 9.2 percent and 5.9 percent respectively, showing a tendency of sharp moderation quarter after quarter.

In addition, Shanghai’s economic growth rate lagged the pace of the national average, which stood at 10.3 percent in 2010, for the third consecutive year.

“Shanghai has secured a stable growth last year,” said Cai Xuchu, chief economist at the local statistics bureau. “The slower pace, especially in the last quarter of 2010, was mainly due to a higher comparative base and it reflected the demand to revamp the city’s economic structure.”

Some analysts said today Shanghai requires a new engine to power ahead its economy after the World Expo, which contributed quite a lot to the city’s economic performance last year.

“Shanghai needs to find another stable source of growth after the Expo,” said Li Maoyu, an analyst at the Changjiang Securities Co. “Building the city into a global financial hub could be one, and construction of a Disneyland park can also contribute.”

China Watch Blog has learnt that China expects to maintain the stability of its export-related policy, and it is “highly unlikely” that the country will reduce export rebates for highly polluting and energy-intensive industries “during the first half”.

According to the Economic Information newspaper, some Chinese ministries are mulling reducing and canceling export-tax rebates on selected products which are highly polluting and energy-intensive.

A senior Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) official in charge of drafting export-related policies, was quoted as saying by a China Daily report that such a decision will not come any time soon.

“While it is still not clear when the global economy will fully recover, China will try to maintain continuity and stability in its foreign trade policies,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

“We will not take any sort of measures in the first quarter, or even the first half of the year, if there are no signs of an entrenched recovery in the global economy,” he added.

Citing an unnamed source, the Economic Information said new tax-rebate measures will probably cover several categories including rubber, steel and materials for construction, although the rate of any rebate was not disclosed. The newspaper said the ministries have finished preliminary research work, but did not outline when the authorities would launch concrete proposals.

China Watch Blog has learnt that Taobao.com, a Chinese-language website for online auctions and shopping founded by Alibaba Group, reported nearly 200 million registered members and more than 200 billion yuan in annual turnover, creating at least 1 million online sales related jobs.

As China’s inflation data remains high, the E-market will attract more price-conscious customers from the country’s 450 million Internet users and has yet to deliver more growth potential.

But the opportunity also brings a huge challenge to China’s logistics sector, one of the largest barriers to e-commerce.

Chinese customers have long been grumbling about the delays and patchy quality in the delivery sector because the logistics companies.

To ease the bottleneck, Alibaba Group, China’s e-commerce giant, unveiled its plan on Jan 19 to invest 20 billion to 30 billion yuan in the first step to set up a network of warehouses nationwide.

China’s electronics-oriented B2C site, 360buy.com and the garment site Vancl.com, also stepped up efforts to construct warehouses in major cities.

“We hope 10 years from now, anyone placing an online order can receive their goods within eight hours,” Ma Yun, chairman and chief executive of Alibaba, said.